Originally published April 17, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get weekly issues.
Final Thought – Friday, April 17, 2026
By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor
“Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way; yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death.
If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god, would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.
Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground. Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!” – Psalm 44:18-26
“Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 8:34-39
“Over 100 million + street children struggle daily in the developing world, with a significant concentration in Asia. Our mission is to change this reality. By supporting well-run orphanages and children’s homes, we provide safe havens where children receive the care and tools they need to transform their lives.” – Asian Pacific Children’s Fund Website
Our founder Don McAlvany is also the founder of the Asian Pacific Children’s Fund, a Christian ministry that rescues neglected and orphaned children in the Asian Pacific, gives them a safe thriving space to grow up in, introduces them to the gospel, and invites them to a disciplined life.
From their website: Our journey began (in 2005) when Don and Molly McAlvany first visited their youngest son volunteering in an Indonesian orphanage. From there, it spread to India, the Philippines, Nepal, and Myanmar, with 600+ children under our care. Through partnerships with well-run orphanages, APCF ensures that children receive the love, education, and support they need to break free from poverty and create self-sufficient futures.
Their work in Myanmar is what brings a story to us that comes from Don’s ministry. This story captures the spirit of adversity overcome with hope. Here we have a story of a dark cloud centering around a former source for light, the Adonai Children’s Home.
Though they walked in the shadows of death, they emerged in a place of hope. Yet that place of hope needs more help to reach its full potential.
We have been following the ongoing developments in Myanmar after the military seized power in February 2021. The military’s ruling party lost in a landslide election in November 2020. That election saw Aung San Suu elected as their new Prime Minister.
While the transition to power was allowed to continue, the military was plotting a coup they would execute just before the new government was set to take power. On February 1, 2021, the military took power, arresting the newly elected Prime Minister (who remains imprisoned today), and triggering a violent, armed civil war.
The Asian Pacific Children’s Fund, co-headed by our former Editor and our founder, Don McAlvany, has long been working in these very lands, rescuing orphans from neglect. Now, the challenge to children in Myanmar was ratcheted up.
Some of the acts of violence the Junta is accused of committing include airstrikes on villages, random rounding up of insurrectionists, kidnapping children and adults to become new soldiers, and even intentional mass murder as a means of terroristic deterrence.
These are only some of the deadliest obstacles children of Myanmar face daily. They are hardly the only ones.
The UN has estimated 17.6 million children in Myanmar require some form of humanitarian aid, 1.6 million have been intentionally displaced, and over 55,000 civilian buildings have been destroyed by Junta forces.
In the midst of such turmoil sat one of the APCF’s children’s homes, the Adonai Home. Around them, children fell victim to rape, torture, and murder, as well as forced soldier conscription. Their sense of safety was long gone. The shadow of death was looming over them. They felt their sense of safety evaporate overnight and turn into extreme distress by the time the final decision had to be made.
At 5:00AM, on February 28, 2024, the sense of impeding death had already made the air seem palpably thick with threats. A fog of trepidation hung over the home. It was time to leave. There was no other choice.
The decision to travel to the Indian border could not have been made lightly. Even where the Junta did not hold the land, surprise checkpoints or air raids made the land unsafe for travel, especially for children, a highly prized spoil of war for the Junta.
Yet traveling in such perilous conditions was far safer than remaining where they were, for it was only a matter of time before the Junta would directly threaten the safety of the children and the staff of the home.
For security reasons, we cannot give you the details of their trip as they traveled to India.
Whether the journey was hours or days, the time spent making it to the Indian border must have felt like death was hanging over them, yet hope was within grasp.
They would reach India, having traveled to the India Gate directly. Fortunately, the Junta’s control of the land is not high on its borders or in rural regions (though its air strikes and other incursions on these lands continue to this day), so our intrepid sojourners were able to safely make it to India.
Once in India, the good work began, free of immediate threat of death or harm, to build a sustainably flourishing space for the children to grow up in.
One of our self-stewardship principles is the idea that whatever the circumstances, whatever the current limitations, we seek opportunity within those parameters to optimize our sustainable flourishing potentials.
Plainly spoken, you do the best with what you are given while you yet seek to improve the circumstances overall. This community has flourished in the first part and now seeks help pursuing the second part of that former statement.
At first, they were received by safe house hosts. There were taken to a safe house where they had time for devotion, prayer, and a shared meal. They then settled into a more permanent situation, a cement storage basement, which itself was located in a remote Indian village.
They would be living in a cement storage basement, though it could not stay like that if they were to be sustained, let alone if they were to flourish.
With the help of the children, the caregivers transformed a cement storage basement into a habitable home for themselves and the children.
In current year, the Junta has held a dubious election which hasn’t swayed the opinions of the people who resisted them before the election.
Their hold on the land has not improved since the winners were announced and the new government took power. While they are no longer “officially” a junta, to many of the people of Myanmar they still are.
The Adonai Home still exists in that remote village in India. They work everyday to improve their circumstances.
The remoteness of the village means the Home must be as self-sustaining as it can or supplied reliably from outside. This is where APCF has stepped in, provided mattresses, warm clothing, blankets, a water purifier, a refrigerator, and a washing machine.
They’ve built and/or repaired ventilation, electricity, and plumbing. They built wardrobes and a front door, and they even constructed a bamboo fence with a locking iron gate “to protect the children from local threats.”
The biggest improvement might be the garden the children have been successfully running, where they grow pumpkin, cucumber, ladyfinger, and corn. From the APCF website, “Daily worship, prayer, and praise became their anchor through the fear and anxiety of displacement.”
While they have come a long way, there’s still much to be done. What they hope for most is to secure land so they can build a new and permanent home base, in buildings that are designed and built for serving neglected and orphaned children
The goal has been (and has been achieved for hundreds of children through APCF) to create for neglected children a sustainably flourishing and God-honoring environment while they become mature men and women. The paraphrasing is mine, but I believe I captured the spirit of their ministry.
What they need now is more support, especially financial, as they seek to transition from a cement storage basement to an intended children’s home. To do that, visit their website at https://www.apcf.world/donate-support-orphanages-asia. If you have cryptocurrency, you can donate as well. You can also donate stocks and DAFs.
Barring unforeseen breaking news, be sure to read your MIA next week, April 24, 2026, as we will provide a Bellwether DeepDive on the current geopolitical context of the Iran War up to April 23, 2026.